Keeping OFBiz secure

Content

What is this page about?

This page is about security as in "external security". In other words it's not about authentication nor authorisation, for that refer to OFBiz Security Permissions.
But about keeping your OFBiz instance secure from external exploits, and prevent vulnerabilities as soon as they are known.

You can trust the Apache OFBiz PMC Members and Committers do their best to keep OFBiz secure. But despite our best efforts we might sometimes overlook a security issue. In such cases, as explained at https://ofbiz.apache.org/security.html, we strongly encourage OFBiz users to report security problems affecting OFBiz to the private security mailing list of the OFBiz project (security AT ofbiz.apache.org), before disclosing them in a public forum. Please see the page of the ASF Security Team for further information and contact details. Also in case of doubt, refer to the current page where quick fixes not already released might be explained.

Also you should update your release version as soon as a security update is mentioned at https://ofbiz.apache.org/download.html#vulnerabilities.
If you are using a release branch rather than a released package, as soon as the release branch contains the security update, you should update ("svn up") your working copy, test and apply in production...

You might refer to Unable to render Jira issues macro, execution error. for details on security.

Who is concerned?

Roughly there are 3 categories of OFBiz users:

1. Those who use OFBiz only in an internal manner, without any connections with the Internet, most of the time only the OFBiz backend is then used. They should be the less concerned.
   But this category tends to be less and less represented. Nowadays most of the organisations need somehow to be connected.
2. Users working in a secured environment, notably through firewalls and proxies. They should less fear security vulnerabilities. But you can't never be sure, malicious hackers, sometimes called crackers, are always trying...
3. Users working in a less secure environment. For instance using the Out Of The Box (OOTB) OFBiz ecommerce/ecomseo solutions with a direct access from the Internet to it.

In any cases, always check that your version is up to date. Get tothe "Security" page at bottom of the OFBiz site. If you use the trunk be sure to closely follow JIRA issues and revisions commits regarding security and check Unable to render Jira issues macro, execution error. . Then apply security patches as soon as possible, and of course check this page!

How to check yourself, and possibly share and help

Now you might wonder how to keep your own OFBiz instance safe from vulnerabilities and maybe to contribute your experience to other OFBiz users. Having worked on the OFBiz security for few years, these are the tools I (Jacques Le Roux) personaly recommend. For each it's explained in specific pages how they work  and how to share your results

Java

Currently we have no known Java vulnerabilities in OFBiz code. There are some vulnerable third parties libraries. Fortunately it's not high vulnerabilities. As you can see on our README file we use SonarCloud and soon CodeQL to check for our vulnerability during our Continuous Integration process on GitHub. We also use Checkstyle for a better code before pushing changes in Git repo.

JavaScript

For JavaScript we use Retire.js see this page: About retire.js. As you can see on our README file we also use CodeQL to check for vulnerabilities during our Continuous Integration process on GitHub.  And we use npm audit before pushing changes in Git repo.

HTTP headers

For HTTP headers: https://cyh.herokuapp.com/cyh.This page gives more information: How to Secure HTTP Headers

File Upload

Since Unable to render Jira issues macro, execution error. the uploads are secured in OFBiz.
For your own safety in production you might be interested by https://media.defense.gov/2020/Jun/09/2002313081/-1/-1/0/CSI-DETECT-AND-PREVENT-WEB-SHELL-MALWARE-20200422.PDF

Penetration tools

There are web oriented tools like OWASP Zed Attack, Beef or IBM Security AppScan. But most of the time they are too general, and totally parsing OFBiz can take a lot of time or be quite a challenge if done manually. You can find more penetration tools here.

In December 2015, I ran a complete (100%) OWASP Zed Attack automated (Quick Start) penetration session against a locale instance of OFBiz backend (trunk head) running on localhost. It started with the same link used for backend demos. No major flaws were discovered.

Another simpler but not to be negledted tool is the security option of Spotbug. I use it as an Eclipse plugin.